TWELVE RESEARCHERS TO BE BROUGHT TO RUSSIA'S ARCTIC DRIFTING STATION

ST.PETERSBURG, March 24 (RIA Novosti's Anna Novak) - In early April twelve researchers will be brought to the Russian drifting station North Pole-33 (SP-33) in the Arctic, Vladimir Sokolov told RIA Novosti. He leads the high-latitude Arctic expedition of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute at Gidromet (Russian hydrometeorological agency).

He said that the first in the series of flights to the station in April will happen on April 6. By that time the station is to prepare a runway.

Flights will be made from an additional base to be opened 100 kilometers from the North Pole.

The helicopter will bring food, new equipment and twelve researchers to the station. "Some of them will work for several weeks or a month. Others will stay for six months and beef up the station crew", Sokolov said.

As of now, the North Pole-33 station is found approximately at 89 degrees north latitude and 130 degrees west longitude. In about one to 1.5 months it will approach the geographic position of the North Pole.

"The murky night ended a week ago at the station and a full Polar day has begun - the sun is shining all day long", Sokolov said.

He recalled that the eleven researchers at North Pole-33 go on making special observations of the upper atmosphere, water, and ice cover.

The SP-33 continues many-year study of the Central Arctic region, which Russia began back in 1937 at the world's first drifting station North Pole-1.